On Saturday from 9:30 – 12:30, the Roslyn Branch volunteered at the Jones Beach Energy and Nature Center.
We worked in a seaside pollinator garden and helped weed out Mugworts and Phragmites. Non-native invasive species like those two are very problematic and spread with each sea breeze. If they are not slowly taken care of before it takes over, they will be near impossible to get rid of.
The roots of the phragmites, a plant notorious for being hard to uprooted completely, are called rhizomes and they grow horizontally underground, forming a T with the stem, making it very difficult to pull out. The roots can grow up to several feet long! With a lot of teamwork and testing out different strategies and methods, our members found the best way to remove those devils and quickly utilized those means to speed up the process.
Mugworts on the other hand is easy to remove but hard to distinguish. The leaf is similar to many other plants found in backyard gardens, save for the greyish stem in the back. It has a half-dead look when it’s grow up and we removed those with ease.
Even under freezing conditions, we managed to work together and complete our tasks without losing a finger, which I would consider a win.
Members who participated include:
Yang Amy Wu (3 hours), Tiffany Lin (3 hours), Ryan Lin (3 hours), Ethan Lin (3 hours), Fanxi Xia (3 hours), Zixi Xia (3 hours), Natalie Tsui (3 hours), and Zihan Wang (3 hours).
Reporter: Yang Amy Wu
